<p>Regions like the U.S. and Europe have been doubling down on rebuilding their industrial muscle after decades of closing down factories and outsourcing the work to countries like China. To that end, a fast-growing Polish startup called Nomagic, which builds robotic arms for picking, packing, and moving in logistics operations, has raised $44 million in [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Apptronik, an Austin-based maker of humanoid robots, on Tuesday announced a new pilot partnership with American supply chain/manufacturing stalwart, Jabil. The deal arrives two weeks after Apptronik announced a $350 million Series A financing round aimed at scaling up production of its Apollo robot. The Jabil deal is the second major pilot announced by Apptronik. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Today marks three years since Russia’s illegal, unprovoked, and brutal invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian people have heroically fought the war with grit and determination, but they have also, against the odds, innovated on and off the battlefield.&nbsp; In addition to establishing a defense tech initiative called&nbsp;BRAVE1, the country has also hosted tech conferences like [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Norwegian robotics firm 1X unveiled its latest home robot, Neo Gamma, on Friday. The humanoid system will succeed Neo Beta, which debuted in August. Like its predecessors, the Neo Gamma is a prototype designed for testing in the home environment. Images of the robot show it performing a number of household tasks like making coffee, [&hellip;]</p>

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<p>Figure founder and CEO Brett Adcock Thursday revealed a new machine learning model for humanoid robots. The news, which arrives two weeks after Adcock announced the Bay Area robotics firm’s decision to step away from an OpenAI collaboration, is centered around Helix, a “generalist” Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model. VLAs are a new phenomenon for robotics, leveraging [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Robotics startup Figure AI is raising $1.5 billion at a $39.5 billion valuation, a whopping 15 times higher than before.</p>

<p>Meta is forming a new team within its Reality Labs hardware division to build robots that can assist with physical tasks, Bloomberg reported. The team will be responsible for developing humanoid robotics hardware, potentially including hardware that can perform household chores. Meta&#8217;s new robotics group, which will be led by Marc Whitten, driverless car startup [&hellip;]</p>

<p>ICON, which builds homes using 3D printing, has closed on $56 million in Series C funding co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Tiger Global, the company has confirmed to TechCrunch exclusively. The raise represents a first close for the Austin-based ICON, according to a spokesperson. Existing backers CAZ Investments, LENX, Modern Ventures, Oakhouse Partners, Overmatch [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Uber Eats customers in Jersey City can now have their orders delivered by one of Avride’s autonomous sidewalk delivery robots. The launch, which kicked off this week in New Jersey, is Uber’s latest foray into autonomous vehicles and represents an expanding relationship with Avride. The ride-hail and delivery giant deploys AVs on its app in [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Apptronik, a University of Texas spinout that was quietly building humanoid robots before it became quite so fashionable, on Thursday announced a $350 million Series A round of financing. B Capital and Capital Factory co-led the round, which also featured participation from Google, whose DeepMind division is partnering with Apptronik to deliver embodied AI for [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Apple is exploring both humanoid and non-humanoid robotic form factors, according to a new scoop from longtime Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The intel comes on the heels of a research paper from the iPhone maker that explores human interactions with “non-anthropomorphic” robots — specifically a Pixar-style lamp. While Apple’s research paper highlights elements that could [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Last month, Apple offered up more insight into its consumer robotics work via a research paper that argues that traits like expressive movements are key to optimizing human-robot interaction. “Like most animals,” starts the report, “humans are highly sensitive to motion and subtle changes in movement.” To illustrate its point, Apple pays homage to Pixar, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Meta on Friday announced PARTNR, a new program designed to study human-robot interaction (HRI). The research is specifically focused on how humans and robots might collaborate in the home environment. That includes mundane tasks like cleaning, cooking, and picking up food deliveries. Automated housework is a decades-old dream, most prominently captured by Rosey on &#8220;The [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Boston Dynamics Wednesday announced a partnership designed to bring improved reinforcement learning to its electric Atlas humanoid robot. The tie-up is with the Robotics &amp; AI Institute (RAI Institute), earlier known as The Boston Dynamics AI Institute. Both organizations were founded by Marc Raibert, a former MIT professor who served as Boston Dynamics&#8217; CEO for [&hellip;]</p>

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<p>Brightpick, a maker of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), on Tuesday announced a lofty addition to its current line. The appropriately named Giraffe system is notable for its large, retractable platform capable of reaching up to 20 feet (6 meters) in height to pick items from warehouse shelves. It’s a novel approach to warehouses with ceilings [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Figure AI, a robotics company&nbsp;working to bring a general-purpose humanoid robot into commercial and residential use, announced Tuesday on X that it is exiting a deal with OpenAI. The Bay Area-based outfit has instead opted to focus on in-house AI owing to a “major breakthrough.” In conversation with TechCrunch afterward, founder and CEO Brett Adcock [&hellip;]</p>

<p>SoftBank is negotiating a $500 million investment in Skild AI, a software company building a foundational model for robotics at a $4 billion valuation, Bloomberg and Financial Times reported. The 2-year-old company raised its previous funding round of $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation last July from investors, including Jeff Bezos, Lightspeed Venture Partners, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Safety is often overlooked in the rush to bring humanoid robots to the workplace. As high-profile corporations ranging from retailers like Amazon to carmakers such as Mercedes and BMW have announced humanoid pilots for factories and warehouses, conversations around worker safety are regularly buried beneath industry hype. One Bay Area robotics firm is hoping to [&hellip;]</p>